We are still in Iowa City tonight. My Dad had his testings this morning/afternoon. During the afternoon they couldn’t keep him awake to ask him questions and get the testing done….so they were going to just send us home and come back next week.  but…we asked if we could just stay tonight and get it done in the morning. So that’s what we are doing.  We found a hotel close to the University that wasn’t flooded..(Hawkeye country…YUCK )  My Dad has literally gone down hill since we got to the hotel.  My Mom is recovering from surgery three weeks ago so my Sister and I are handling the brunt of everything. My Dad was very, very, very non-coherent after he had a nap and all that. He knows who we are, but he’s talking about farming in the field, book sales, and going to school tomorrow.  It’s very sad. Then we had to try and get him to the bathroom.  He’s also very immobile tonight. We are hoping it’s just from sitting a lot today.  We don’t know if we are going to be able to get him out the door in the morning if he’s still like this. My sister and I aren’t quite “mighty” enough. So…that’s what we are dealing with right now. We know that Walgreens down the road has a wheelchair we can go buy if all else fails.

This is about the most depressing day I have had in a long time. My Mom says this is the worst he has ever been so far.  Hopefully we can make it through the night without calling 911. We don’t know.

So, needless to say, we don’t have any answers yet. Hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be good news, but we’ll at least be able to know more about the lightning and what it actually did to him.

Thanks for all your prayers and support. This is insane!! I never thought it would come to this. We have a feeling the nursing home is in the near future. I dread that very much, but we know my Mom can’t handle him either. It’s a lot for three of us right now!

Around the same time period, Jayden and Josie got pink-eye and then gave me the pleasure of experiencing it too. Needless to say Josie ended up getting it twice and Jayden three times before it was all said and done.

Kim’s Mom had surgery back on the 19th so I watched the kids (I took last week and this next week off from work) while Kim went and waited with the rest of her family. We took the kids to see Grandma Pat that afternoon and then went back again that night to help Kim’s Dad get back to our place to stay the night.

This memorial weekend was rather interesting to say the least. On Friday Kim came back from shopping with a friend and said that she had some interesting news for me. As soon as she said it was about her Dad, my heart sank as his health has been questionable as of late. The good news is no health problems that he currently has was the issue. The bad news was that he had been struck by lightning while sleeping Friday morning. Dale was sleeping when he felt the lightning bolt start up his feet and continued up through his spine and ending at his head. He especially felt it when it hit his back as he has metal rods in his spine from previous back surgeries. He told Pat that he thought his legs had blown off when it initially happened. It’s odd that he even drove himself to breakfast that morning as he was pretty incoherent later that morning. The lightning knocked the picture off the wall and left a mark on the white paint (see larger image from link above).

So we decided we’d head down to Creston on Saturday after attending a couple of graduation parties. It’s always an eery feeling going somewhere when you’re not sure what to expect. Yesterday Dale feel asleep a lot (he fell asleep with his breakfast in his lap). He also slept through Dinner. Fortunately he was doing a lot better today. He even drove himself to the restaurant for breakfast this morning.

It’s amazing that more damage hadn’t occurred and I consider it a miracle that Dale even survived. So all in all, quite an eventful month.
 

The most exciting thing from the weekend was actually witnessing a birth of a cow! Tis the season for births and after 6 years, I actually got to see one live. “Ace” as I like to call it, was born around 9:30 Friday night. I gave him/her the name Ace because it was the first birth of the season and my first birth to see. (Except my own children). It was really really cool. Man, to think we as humans get the opportunity for drugs to cope with the pain! Poor animals have to go through it all naturally. Thank Goodness for an Epidural! The cow really didn’t make any noises, she just kind of walked around/laid down and had him/her. It was fun watching the process afterwards of the mama cow, owning her child. It takes awhile, but she warmed up to it and started to lick her clean. (could you imagine if humans had to lick their child clean, yuck!!!) I’m glad it was a good birth and not one of those where Kevin’s dad would have had to pull it out! So it was a happy ending!

Kevin, Jayden, Josie and I, rode out in the bucket of the tractor (loader bucket) the next morning, to see baby Ace. They had moved the mom and baby so that they could be alone. The kids thought that was really cool to ride on the tractor like that. They were also excited to see the baby. Great papa was even more excited to take us out on the tractor to see it! What a ride!!

I miss you so, my taggy blue.  

Please bid Olivia well.

You gave me comfort,

through thick and thin.

From the time of constantly carrying you,

to the having you only at night.

Take care my taggy blue,

I’ll miss you so. 

How does a single parent manage to handle two kids? All I can say is I don’t know how. Take the simple thing as having Jayden needing to go to the bathroom. We stopped near Ft. Dodge on the way back and had some McDonalds (I know, I usually dislike eating there, but it’s quick and the kids usually eat something there). Well, about half way through our lunch, Jayden needed to go use the bathroom. Not a big deal if Kim and I were both there. Obviously, I took Josie (with chicken nugget in hand) in with Jayden and I. Everything worked out okay, but still, it’s not fun having to deal with both of them at the same time…making sure Josie doesn’t touch something she shouldn’t and keeping her chicken nugget off the floor.

All in all, the kids were pretty good for the whole weekend. But, it sure is nice having Kim back home.

Josie started making some funny tongue noises the other day so I thought I’d share them with you. Enjoy the video.

Funny Tongue Noises from Kevin Minnis on Vimeo.

Till next time…